ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The University of New Mexico women’s tennis team will look to keep a hot start rolling, but at what point in the season does it go from “hot start” to just a “hot season”, because the Lobos are about there. New Mexico sits at 8-1 on the season and hosts UTEP on Saturday with a chance to win a sixth straight match.
To do that, the Lobos will be looking to defeat UTEP for an 11th straight time, but it won’t be easy. Last year’s match with the Miners was a see-saw drag-out affair that wasn’t decided until a wild final match. UNM led 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2, but everything was tied 3-3 with only No. 1 singles remaining. In that match, UNM’s Yue Lin “Polly” Chen was leading Vanessa Valdez 4-6, 6-3 and 5-0, but Vanessa Valdez fought off eight match points over the next 30 minutes, somehow sending the match to a tiebreaker, where Chen, who was clearly hobbled at the time, prevailed 7-2.
Chen is still playing No. 1 for the Lobos, but Valdez is gone, and UTEP’s former No. 4 player from that match Kathleen Percegona is now playing No. 1, and that should be another key matchup. If they face off it would be a rematch of an early September matchup that was won by CHen on the opening weekend of the year in September. The Lobos return pretty much the same cast from last year’s meeting, with only Sarah O’Connor a definite newcomer in the middle of UNM’s lineup. Head coach Vicky Maes, who has proceeded over UNM’s best start since the 2015 NCAA Tournament team, has used several players in the No. 6 slot between Satoho Toriumi, Maria Sodre and Sofia Taborga.
UTEP enters the match at 2-6 on the year and still in search of its first NCAA Division I win, having defeated Western New Mexico and Hardin-Simmons. The Miners are coming off a 7-0 loss to Abilene Christian, a team UNM defeated 5-2 earlier this year. But, while UNM leads the all-time series 36-1 (the only loss in 2010), last year’s match showed that anything can happen, and UTEP has been very good in doubles in 2022, and that was a key point in the 2021 match between the two.
At stake for UNM is a potential 9-1 start, which would give the Lobos its best start since 1998 when the team went 12-0 to begin that season. Individually, Myu Kagayama is approaching 20 wins on the season, as she is currently 16-6 on the year.